Adventure Music

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Tell us what you think! You can read and leave comments about this [a href="../featuredetail.php?action=view&featureid=28&showpage=1"]feature[/a] below:

[deadworm222]

Comments just based on the first page, I haven't read this till the end yet:



In my experience the quality of music teaching varies greatly. Also, even though one might be a decent pianist, ones abilities in composition might be weak at best. I'm a prime example of this. When it comes to composing, although piano/any other melodic instrument is important, it is probably more useful to focus on improvisation and theory than just concentrate on memorizing pieces and perfecting your staccato technique. Improvisation is where songs are born from, and theory helps you understand structure.

[m0ds]

You're right about the pianist situation - the main point I was trying to put across though with that part is that you're probably going to succeed far better at adventure game music if you have a grounding or general knowledge of music composition rather than just using trackers or fruityloops. Sure, they're fun, but they're not very diverse. Cubase is a far better option - as you seem to be using! I can't read music, but I have a good musical ear and that has helped me greatly over the years.



About that sentence... I have NO idea where it was going to lead! I wrote this article at work but never finished it, because I got fired! LOL. Thanks for your comments though, deadworm.



I agree, techno is no good with this genre - but I can't recall ever hearing any in an adventure game.



As for the timing example, what, were you able to read the bottom cut-off line?!



I hope to have my second music tutorial for Adventure Developers finished by Christmas, it will cover a lot that has already been mentioned in this one but there will be a whole bundle of new stuff and musical examples for an adventure game that doesn't exist. I hope you'll take a look when it's written

[DCW]

Nice article! I'm already looking forward to your next one



One question about timing, which you mention on the last page: How can you time cut scenes or ingame events? I ask because In my game, the time is variable because the player can change the duration of the lines of speech.



Even without this setting, you don't know how long each line will be in milli seconds until you've recorded all the voices for the game (if you're using voice actors)



Is it still possible to have timed music?

[deadworm222]

On catchyness: Overly complicated themes confuse the player, too simplistic themes irritate. Example: There was only one irritating theme in Apprentice II and it was the song that played when you were in front of the Wizard's Tower. Also, Apprentice II wasn't very theme-based. The only strong theme was Lord Ironcrow's. I felt like the music in Apprentice II was more than """just""" background music. (For example, although Grim Fandango has lots of brilliant music, not all of them are suited for listening with WinAmo. Maybe...) That can be a bad thing, because the songs can become irritating to the player. Sam and Max comes to mind as a game that didn't have that much "theme" music but still worked great.



There's one strange sentence: "...I don't really need to One of the trickiest things to master..." And the beginning of the chapter on that page is repeated in almost identical form later on. *shifty eyes*



One point: No Techno. If you want electronic, do Ambient or Industrial (ala Dead City and the jukebox in The Fringe Cafe in TLJ), because it's so much less irritating! My two cents. Save the techno for the club cut scenes.



...and from WHAT kind of game is that timing example from? *double shifty eyes*



Really good article, glad to notice experienced pros giving advice. :-) I'll get back to Cubase now...

[deadworm222]

It says "the tall man is reaallly turned on now".



*shifty*

[Erwin_Br]

Interesting point, DCW.



Oh, and deadworm: ¬¬

[deadworm222]

At the Curves project, our composer needs to wait for the dialogue lines before composing. One solution is not to make the dialogue lines skippable during cutscenes, another is to divide the song into pieces and fade them in & out at the right points. It's not such a big deal, though, and most people still want to hear all the dialogue.

[m0ds]

Timing is a major issue and is only something I've been able to do "roughly". I've figured out a way to time music in AGS and sync it to a degree but not with other engines. I'll explain this method in the next tutorial. As deadworm says the best ways otherwise are to turn skip speech off and to divide the song up (if you've played The Adventures Of Fatman, the 6 minute outro tune was cut up into about 6 different parts).

[Scummbuddy]

this was a very good read. I too, look forward to a next one, when there's time. This one kind of ended quite abruptly though, perhaps adding a conclusion would be best. Plus, I believe there was an error...

Under 2) Background Music

"I don't really need to One of the trickiest things... "



I am guessing it says "I don't really need to tell you that one of ...



Keep up the good work, and the interesting articles.

[tommygum]

What about filesize? How do you keep it down? If you don't wanna use raw midi files... I can't use trackers.

[Erwin_Br]

Well, how about converting your midi files to MP3 or OGG? If your midi output sounds like crap, you could ask someone else to do it for you. Someone with a better soundcard.

[deadworm222]

It's impossible to keep the filesize down if you want the music to be of decent quality (meaning things like sample rate, etc). Of course, if you only have a few songs, it doesn't matter that much.

[Trumgottist]

I hope to have my second music tutorial for Adventure Developers finished by Christmas, it will cover a lot that has already been mentioned in this one but there will be a whole bundle of new stuff and musical examples for an adventure game that doesn't exist. I hope you'll take a look when it's written

Christmas -04? I'm still waiting...   (Your post in the Alien thread reminded me.)

[Candle]

What if they gon't have a sound card, turn the music down, ask you upload it with out music as they are on dialup .